EU-Report Accession Bulgaria

Chapter 18: Education and training

Some further progress has been made in this area since the last Regular Report.

Bulgaria continued to participate in the second generation of the Leonardo da Vinci and Socrates Community programmes (see section A.b ­ Relations between the European Union and Bulgaria). Bulgaria started to participate in the new Youth programme in October 2001. Since December 2001, the National Agencies for both Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci have been located in the Human Resource Development Centre.

There are no particular developments to report regarding the Directive concerning education of children of migrant workers.

Bulgaria has made little progress with reforming its education and training system. A Law on Employment Promotion entered into force in January 2002 (see also Chapter 13Social policy and employment). This law provides some incentives for employers to hire and train unemployed persons and for allowances for unemployed people participating in vocational education and training. It also aims to regulate the licensing of training providers, which will now be done by the National Agency for Vocational Education and Training, instead of the Ministry of Labour. New implementing legislation dealing with entry to general education and procedures for approval and dissemination of textbooks has also been adopted. Implementing legislation has been adopted for the Public Education Act of January 2002. This aims inter alia to address shortcomings in coordination and monitoring and to address the problem of lack of resources for the secondary school system.

Concerning vocational education and training, a fifth year for all types of professional schools was introduced and programmes for the ninth, tenth and eleventh classes were drawn up to ensure compliance with newly-established curricula for vocational education. The National Agency for Vocational Education and Training has also made progress in licensing 14 centres for vocational education and training and has also drawn up general state requirements for a number of professions.

The Ministry of Education and Science was involved in the consultation process on the European Commission's Memorandum on Lifelong Learning.

Overall assessment

While Bulgaria's participation in Community programmes is basically satisfactory, more efforts should be devoted to respecting the financial obligations arising from its participation in the Community programmes, and the management of the Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes needs to be improved. The operational capacity of the three National Agencies needs to be upgraded. Whilst Bulgarian legislation seems to be largely in line with the requirements set out in the Directive concerning education of children of migrant workers, further efforts are necessary to ensure this Directive can be effectively implemented.

Most of the recommendations in the last Regular Report on the education and training system are still valid. For example, it is still necessary to further develop the vocational education and training system at regional level, to ensure co-operation between companies and schools and to invest in active labour market measures. There is still a skill mismatch in the area of vocational education and training, including higher education, which needs to be addressed. Reliable labour market data, at both national and regional levels, is needed so that analysis and forecasts of labour market trends can be made. In this context, further involvement of social partners in the development of training standards, based on occupational requirements and curricula at national, regional and branch level, needs to be encouraged so that training responds better to the needs of the labour market. The capacity of the Agency for Vocational Education and Training, which is responsible inter alia for accreditation and licensing in the area of vocational education, is still limited and needs to be increased. Continuing vocational training needs to be strengthened. Further reforms in teacher training are also needed. Co-operation between the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy needs to be strengthened, particularly in the area of vocational counselling.

A major challenge will be to ensure the best possible network of secondary schools, including adjusting the number of schools and teachers in line with demographic developments.

Conclusion

In its 1997 Opinion, the Commission concluded that, in the perspective of accession, no major problems should be expected in these fields.

Since the Opinion, the process of bringing Bulgaria's legislation and structures into line with the acquis has generally developed satisfactorily.

Negotiations in this chapter have been provisionally closed. Bulgaria has not requested any transitional arrangements in this area. Bulgaria is generally meeting the commitments it has made in the accession negotiations in this field.

Bulgaria should focus further efforts on improvement of the financial management of its participation in the Community programmes, better co-ordination between all the bodies involved, effective implementation of the Directive concerning education of children of migrant workers and on a comprehensive reform of the vocational education and training system to ensure that it is flexible and can adapt in line with the needs of the labour market.

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